Data from NASA's Polar spacecraft, circa 1998, provided crucial clues to finding "portals" -- an extraordinary opening in space or time that connects travelers to distant realms. "We call them X-points or electron diffusion regions," explains plasma physicist Jack Scudder of the University of Iowa. "They're places where the magnetic field of Earth connects to the magnetic field of the Sun, creating an uninterrupted path leading from our own planet to the sun's atmosphere 93 million miles away."

Observations by NASA's THEMIS spacecraft and Europe's Cluster probes suggest that these magnetic portals open and close dozens of times each day. They're typically located a few tens of thousands of kilometers from Earth where the geomagnetic field meets the onrushing solar wind. Most portals are small and short-lived; others are yawning, vast, and sustained. Tons of energetic particles can flow through the openings, heating Earth's upper atmosphere, sparking geomagnetic storms, and igniting bright polar auroras.

NASA is planning a mission called "MMS," short for Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, due to launch in 2014, to study the phenomenon. Bristling with energetic particle detectors and magnetic sensors, the four spacecraft of MMS will spread out in Earth's magnetosphere and surround the portals to observe how they work.

Just one problem: Finding them. Magnetic portals are invisible, unstable, and elusive. They open and close without warning "and there are no signposts to guide us in," notes Scudder.* Portals form via the process of magnetic reconnection. Mingling lines of magnetic force from the sun and Earth criss-cross and join to create the openings. "X-points" are where the criss-cross takes place. The sudden joining of magnetic fields can propel jets of charged particles from the X-point, creating an "electron diffusion region."

To learn how to pinpoint these events, Scudder looked at data from a space probe that orbited Earth more than 10 years ago.* "In the late 1990s, NASA's Polar spacecraft spent years in Earth's magnetosphere," explains Scudder, "and it encountered many X-points during its mission."

Because Polar carried sensors similar to those of MMS, Scudder decided to see how an X-point looked to Polar. "Using Polar data, we have found five simple combinations of magnetic field and energetic particle measurements that tell us when we've come across an X-point or an electron diffusion region. A single spacecraft, properly instrumented, can make these measurements."

This means that single member of the MMS constellation using the diagnostics can find a portal and alert other members of the constellation. Mission planners long thought that MMS might have to spend a year or so learning to find portals before it could study them. Scudder's work short cuts the process, allowing MMS to get to work without delay.* It's a shortcut worthy of the best portals of fiction, only this time the portals are real. And with the new "signposts" we know how to find them.

The work of Scudder and colleagues is described in complete detail in the June 1 issue of the Physical Review Letters.

Comments

We could capture the Sun's particles, using a magnetic trap and shoot them out the back of a spacecraft, for fuel. Free fuel. They would collect these free electrons, charge up a grapheme super-capacitor and then out the back of an ion engine. No moving parts and won't have to
carry rocket fuel on a space trip to Mars or inner planets.

Earth's entanglement generator....where a strong magnetic field is generated in the Northern hemisphere by an earth source generator, to entangle the Suns magnetic field lines (spaghetti) and anchor them to an earth entanglement generator, to produce electrical plasmatic free energy. GIving earth an unlimited supply of electricity and high
temperature fusion.

"The entanglement between magnetic field lines (spaghetti) from the sun and other field lines (spaghetti) anchored in Earth's core occurs when these field lines are brought together by gusts of solar wind.

"In the process of smoothing this entanglement, one or more holes are created that now link field lines, with one originating in the sun and the other in the Earth's metallic core," says Scudder. "This linkage allows charged particles to cross a previously forbidden boundary that separates the Earth's volume from the sun's. The formation of these inter-connections represents a stress reduction. The aurorae are a byproduct of this change in how the strands of spaghetti are connected, since with the hole, charged particles from the sun are now allowed access into the atmosphere below the Earth's magnetic shield."

Great. The military should find a good use for it. Burn up entire countries. Super. Can we privatize the miliary now? Just let those whose interests and resources are really being protected pay for it? Let those who could care less about war get vouchers to take and spend on useful things? Eh? Damned war mongers. You'll find a way to use this for a weapon like you do with everything else. We would have electric cars if not for military laws that forbid the purchase of the key components. They are safe but CAN be used in weapons manufacture. So who rules us? Clue: it's not congress or the White House. Wake up people.

Every single planet, moon, & sun have xpoint electron diffusion events. Our sun connects to other suns in other galaxies using the same technique however the events do not occur as often. Imagine finding a bloom tube from earth, traveling through it to the sun then jumping another tube to another planet in our own solar system such as Mars. Theoretically you could get to mars in minutes utilizing electron diffusion regions. The only trick we need to figure out is how to pass physical objects through the portals and have them sustained while going thru and reaching the other side of the portal. I have been talking about these portals for 10+ years now and I am glad to see that electronic magnetic reconnection is now being embarrassed by the scientific community. I was only called crazy about 30 dozen times :)